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October 10, 2007

ATIA Leadership Forum on Accessibility

Dates: January 31 - February 1, 2008
Location: Caribe Royale All-Suites Hotel & Convention Center, Orlando, Florida

Government agencies are being faced with strategic decisions surrounding access for people with disabilities, the aging workforce, and worker shortages. With 78 million baby boomers and 54 million people in the U.S. living with disabilities, today's federal, state, and local agencies need to deliver accessible services and mission critical information to the public and internally for this growing population segment.

To reach persons with disabilities, services and systems must be accessible. This Forum will address successful solutions by other organizations - both public sector and private sector - to deliver accessible systems to Americans with disabilities.

This Forum will discuss not only the need to comply with Section 508, Section 504 and ADA laws, but the organizational benefits that others have realized by going beyond compliance and taking a leadership role in accessibility. How to approach accessibility from an organization-wide perspective is a key element to this Forum. This Forum will also present the return on investment that other organizations have realized through their accessibility efforts.

Real solutions implemented by public and private sector organizations will be presented throughout the two days. All government agencies can benefit from the lessons learned by these companies, agencies, and educational institutions.

The Office of Disability Employment Policy and the Department of Labor are sponsors of this event, recognizing the importance of these discussions to enhancing employment for persons with disabilities and the opportunity to gain input for future policy and program needs. The Computer/Electronic Accommodations Program (CAP) at the Department of Defense is also a participant and will provide information about creating a successful centralized accommodations infrastructure and the measurable benefits they have seen since implementation.

Government personnel will benefit from the dialogue throughout these two days with others in similar situations and with the AT and IT leaders in accessibility. This Forum provides access to key accessibility executives from amongst the leading IT suppliers such as IBM, Microsoft, Adobe, Canon and AOL.

Attendees can network with key industry and government executives and share insights into matters of employment, customer outreach and other accessibility issues. The ATIA Leadership Forum provides the accessibility professional from any background the information needed to begin a complete accessibility integration or expand an existing one.


Who should attend?

Organizations are encourage to bring teams representing multiple functions:

  • Executives including CIO's who are determining their accessibility strategies;
  • Accessibility professionals;
  • Government and education professionals responsible for service delivery to persons with disabilities and the maturing population;
  • HR professionals that play a key role in the internal execution to hire and retain successful workers with disabilities;
  • Federal/State/Local agency professionals who support corporations in the hiring of persons with disabilities; and
  • IT professionals and Quality Assurance/Usability professionals responsible for providing an accessible and robust user experience.


Is this forum held on other dates in other locations?

No. This forum is held once per year in Orlando. It runs in parallel with the ATIA International Conference and at the same hotel so as to be able to take advantage of the Exhibit Hall available in that conference.

The ATIA Leadership Forum on Accessibility and the ATIA International Conference are separate events with separate educational sessions. However, all Forum attendees have free access to the Exhibit Hall in the Main Conference.

The Exhibit Hall showcases over 125 Assistive Technology (AT) manufacturers and service providers in one of the most comprehensive exhibitions in the industry. This offers Forum attendees an opportunity to meet with leading AT suppliers to get their questions answered and get hands-on experience with the most up-to-date AT technologies.


Where can I find additional information about the Forum?

Additional details are available at www.atia.org/leadershipforum.

Posted by Nancy at October 10, 2007 12:01 PM

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